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Human rights advocate known
in the media as "The man who made Kathie Lee cry" speaks at Wells
College.
Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee, will speak at Wells College on Thursday, September 2, at 8:00 p.m. in Main Building's Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.
Kernaghan works to protect workers' rights, especially those of young women who assemble apparel and other goods for export to the United States from Central America, China, the Caribbean, and other developing countries.
During his career, Kernaghan has taken on well-known companies and exposed countless violations. Exposing Kathie Lee Gifford and Wal-Mart in 1996 brought child labor and sweatshop abuses to the national agenda as never before. The NLC and Kernaghan have also exposed Disney sweatshops in Haiti and Liz Claiborne, Wal-Mart, and Fruit of the Loom's use of child labor in Honduras.
The NLC organized a 59-day tour of the U.S. with two teenaged women maquila workers from Central America who sewed clothing for the GAP under harsh circumstances. The tour led to a successful nationwide campaign to make the GAP guarantee the rights of these young women in El Salvador. The contractors' plants were open to independent monitoring of factory conditions by respected religious, human, women's, and labor rights organizations.
In 1997, the NLC launched its first Holiday Season of Conscience, designed to encourage consumers to shop with a conscience and to pressure U.S. companies to be more aware of exploitation. Thanks to the work of Kernaghan and the NLC that holiday season, more than 250,000 people signed a petition to the President and Congress calling for an end to child labor laws and sweatshop abuses.
Kernaghan became involved in the struggle to defend international labor rights after participating in a peace march through Central America in 1985. He has been director of the NLC since 1990.
Wednesday, September 8 - Friday, October 1
Women of Hope exhibit showcased at Wells College.
Women
of Hope, an exhibition of framed posters of African-Americans and
Latinas, will be on display Wednesday, September 8 through Friday,
October 1 in the String Room Gallery inside Main Building on the
Wells College campus. The show is free and open to the public. A
reception will be held on Wednesday, September 8 from 7:00 p.m. to
9:00 p.m.
The posters in this exhibition were
commissioned by 1199's Bread and Roses Cultural Project in New York
City to showcase African-Americans and Latina women who have made a
profound impact on American life. Each poster is designed to provide
unique insight into women who have played major roles in bringing
about social and political change in government and law, literature,
the arts, and in medicine and science. The posters include an image
of the woman and a significant quotation, providing an inspirational
snapshot of these notable women.
The women featured in the African America series include Maya Angelou, poet, playwright and professor; Ella Baker, civil rights organizer; Alexa Canady, neurosurgeon; Septima Clark, teacher; Ruby Dee, author and actress; The Delaney Sisters; Miriam Wright Edelman, president, Children's Defense Fund; Fannie Lou Hamer, Mississippi freedom fighter; Mae C. Jemison, astronaut and physician; Toni Morrison, author; Alice Walker, author; and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, editor and anti-lynching crusader.
The women in the Latina series are Julia Alvarez, novelist and poet; Sandra Cisneros, novelist and poet; Miriam Colon, actress and founder of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater; Ana Sol Gutierrez, aeronautical engineer and school board member; Antonio Hernandez, Civil Rights lawyer, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund; Dolores Huerta, co-founder and vice president of the United Farm Workers Union; Tania Leon, conductor and composer in residence, the New York Philharmonic; Amalia Mesa-Bains, installation artist; Adriana Ocampo, planetary geologist, NASA; Dr. Antonia Pantoja, educator and founder of ASPIRA and Boricua College; Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, physician and women's health advocate; Nydia Velazquez, first Puerto Rican Congresswoman.
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Wednesday evenings from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Rap and 20th century culture topic of talk at Wells College.
Dr.
Susan McClary, professor of musicology at UCLA, will speak about
"Rap, Minimalism, and Structures of Time in Late Twentieth-Century
Culture" at Wells College on Thursday, September 9 at 8:00 p.m. in
the Art Exhibit Room inside Macmillan Hall. The event is free and
open to the public.
Professor McClary is the co-editor of the "Music/Culture" series published by Wesleyan University Press and serves on the editorial board of the University of California Press. Two of her music-theater pieces, Hildegard and Susanna Does the Elders were commissioned by the Overtones Series. She has authored many books and articles, including Georges Bizet: Carmen; Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality; and Conventional Wisdom: The Content of the Musical Form.
Professor McClary was chosen as a MacArthur fellow for 1995-2000. Her visit to Wells is sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa and the college's women's studies major.
The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars Program makes available each year several distinguished scholars who visit 100 colleges and universities. They spend a few days on campus meeting informally with students and faculty members, taking part in classroom discussions, and giving a public lecture to the community.
Ducharme kicks off comedy series at Wells
Al Ducharme, a veteran of clubs and colleges, kicks off the fall comedy series at Wells College on Wednesday, September 22 at 8:00 p.m. in the Sommer Student Center on the Wells campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Ducharme blends whimsical, outrageous stories and comedic impressions to make his act one-of-a-kind. He shares his views on everything from life to movies to family and friends.
Ducharme has appeared at some of the nation's top comedy clubs including the Improv in Los Angeles, Caroline's Comedy Club in New York, and the Comedy Connection, Boston.
Novelist A. Manette Ansay to read at Wells College
Critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer A. Manette Ansay will read from her work in the Chapel inside Main Building on the Wells campus on Thursday, September 23 at 8:00 p.m. The reading is free and open to the public.
Ansay's fifth novel, Midnight Champagne, was published last spring by William Morrow & Company. It tells the story of April and Caleb, who have decided to wed after only a brief courtship. April's family is skeptical of her decision to marry an almost total stranger. As soon as the planning begins, so do the problems. April books the Hideaway Lodge, a former bordello that is rumored to be haunted, for the reception. Ansay interweaves the lives and troubles of various family members whose dirty laundry spills out during the reception.
A former teaching fellow and lecturer at Cornell University, Ansay is now an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Ansay is Wells' first Mildred Walker Fiction Writer in Residence. Mildred Walker was an alumna, author, and teacher at Wells. In 1960 she was nominated for the prestigious National Book Award.
In honor of Ms. Walker's distinguished career as a writer and teacher, the Mildred Walker '26 Visiting Fiction Writers Fund was established. This endowment helps aspiring writers and students of literature learn about the art of fiction from visiting writers who will give readings and visit classes at the college.
Multi-cultural poets give reading at Wells College
Poets
Debra Kang Dean and Pablo Medina will give a joint reading of
their work
on Tuesday, September 28, at 8:00 p.m. in the Art Exhibit Room
of Macmillan Hall on the Wells
College campus. The reading is free and open
to the
public.
The poetry of Debra Kang Dean, author
of News of Home, tells us about her
life and family. Half Okinawan and half
Korean, she was born and raised in
Honolulu. Much of her poetry is about
her family, the love she feels for them,
her passion for her home, and her culture.
Kang Dean now resides in Massachusetts with her own family. There, she says she contemplates states of pleasure in the here and now, and what pulls her toward the landscape of the past.
Pablo Medina is the author of three collections of poetry, a memoir, and a novel. He has received a number of awards for his work, among them a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and grants from the New Jersey and Pennsylvania State Arts councils. He also received a Woodrow Wilson-Lila Wallace Fellowship.
Medina is on the faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. He also teaches at the New School University. Born in Cuba, he now makes his home in Montclair, New Jersey.
The Wells College Visiting Writers Series is supported by grants from The New York State Council on the Arts, the Virginia Kent Cummins Writers-in-Residence Fund, and the Mildred Walker Fiction-Writer-in-Residence Fund.
Earlier Articles on Campus Events at Wells College:
April,
1999
February -
March, 1999
November,
1998
October,
1998
September,
1998
May -
Summer, 1998
April,
1998
March,
1998
February,
1998
November,
1997
October,
1997
September,
1997
April -
May, 1997
March,
1997
February,
1997
November -
December, 1996
October,
1996
September,
1996
May,
1996
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